Yesterday I faced terrible downtown parking woes in a vain attempt to buy tickets to the Lucinda Williams concert. I finally arrived at my destination only to be informed that I was at the wrong box office; the concert tickets were on sale across town at the Opera House. My only consolation was thinking about the origin of box office for a place where tickets are sold. The best I can come up with is that sometimes tickets are sold at a temporary office. For example, the high school drama club might set up a table each day at lunch to sell tickets, and they might have one of those little gray metal lock boxes to keep the money and unsold tickets in. Move the box, and you've moved the office, hence box office.

However, the term also applies to a permanent location for the selling of tickets, as in Call the Rupp Arena box office at 555-1234 for more information. So I am in the dark. Help, anyone?



"Is it too much to demand?
I want a full house and a rock 'n' roll band"
--Lucinda Williams, "Passioante Kisses"

originally, the box-office was for the hiring of a theatrical box (seating).

a theatrical box

One that emotes?

I put the parenthetical there just for guise like you, ASp.

I put the parenthetical there just for guise like you, ASp.
Very wise, tsuwm.

Y'all callin me a wise asp?

Don't knock it. Just give fangs where fangs are due.

Who's Lucinda Williams?

Obviously not a relative Alex or you wouldn't have had to queue.

stales

That's true. If Lucinda Williams was related by either birth or marriage then I'd have a guest pass I should hope. Sadly, she is of no relation. She is a songwriter and performer who has been around for quite a long time; I guess you would call her genre country music but she isn't the sort of act that gets much airplay on country music stations that play Garth Brooks and his ilk. She has written many songs that others have made into hits, most notably the song "Passionate Kisses," which Mary Chapin Carpenter recorded several years ago.